Juvenile Reentry, Part I
Beat Intro
Voiceover
00:00 This is the Beat – a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest
community policing topics facing our nation.
Interview
TeNeane Bradford
00:09 Hello and welcome! My name is TeNeane Bradford and on behalf of the COPS
Office I’d like to introduce you to Dr. David Altschuler, a principal research
scientist with Johns Hopkins University and a national reentry expert. He’s here to
talk with us today about juvenile reentry. Dr. Altschuler, can you start by
describing the process of juvenile reentry?
Dr. David Altschuler
00:31 Sure I’d be happy to. I think there is a common myth that juvenile reentry is
about the reentry into the community of juveniles who are coming back from out-
of-home placement. The effort is really about what happens shortly before
release, if we’re lucky. In many instances we’re really talking about what happens
when these young people return to the community. Not very much is happening
in preparation for their return early enough. The process of juvenile reentry, I
believe strongly, is something that needs to be incorporated into our thinking
from the very, very beginning. In fact, even at the point of disposition, when a
decision is being made regarding out-of-home placement, whether it’s to a
correctional facility or some kind of alternative residential program of one sort or
another, we really need to take into consideration what the implications are for
where this young person is going to be returning. So we may want to be thinking
about an out-of-home placement that would be relatively close to the community
to which the child is going to return.
So, it would be my view that reentry is a process that really begins to be taken
into account the point in which a decision is made to place out of home. It gets
incorporated into what is happening from day one when there is an out-of-home
placement admission that this sort of continues to be the focus of attention. The
period of time shortly before release to the community is when we should be
finalizing the plans for reentry. Typically, what happens is that the period of 30,
60, or 90 days before release when we hear about discharge planning, that should
be when we’re finalizing discharge planning, not beginning discharge planning.
Oftentimes 30, 60, or 90 days before release is really a dollar short and a day late.
Then of course we’re talking about the point at which there actually is
community reentry. I think we need to think about it as a staged process. Initially
upon reentry in the community, we need to be thinking much more intensively
about what’s going on and then if it turns out that things are going reasonably
well, we can basically do more step down, we can gradually ease up on things.
But, we would want to look a lot more closely and be more intensified,
particularly during that early stage of reentry in the community. And then
eventually we understand that these young people are no longer going to be
under the authority of the justice system at all and we need to be taking steps to
link them in to the supports, both formal and informal, that they’re going to need
as they ultimately get on with the rest of their lives and hopefully become law-
abiding, tax-paying, and productive citizens.
TeNeane
03:27 Great! So, how are juvenile justice systems organized? You talked about staging
processes and dispositions. What does the organization of the various systems
mean for juvenile reentry?
David
03:38 Well, actually there are variety different forms that we can see when we look at
juvenile justice across the country. The truth is, in many ways we’re talking about
50 + juvenile justice systems because the states, the District of Columbia, and
other territories are structured and operate in very, very different ways. The truth
is, that depending upon the way that the various systems are structured, there are
all kinds of implications for how to be thinking about the way juvenile reentry is
going to be approached. Let me give a little plug, actually. If anybody is
interested in looking at a more detailed description of exactly how many and
what form, they can go on the National Reentry Resource Center website, which
is www.nationalreentryresourcecenter.org. There is a juvenile justice Frequently
Asked Questions document which I was involved in producing that describes all
the different versions.
For present purposes, though, I think it’s just important to understand that
depending upon the structure, we’re going to have to think a little bit differently
about the best way to approach juvenile reentry. In some states and jurisdictions,
for example, the portion of supervised release—that is the community corrections
piece, the post-release piece, of reentry—actually is within the same agency that
handles the facility piece. That’s not true everywhere, but it’s true in some places.
In other places, the community supervision post-release stage is actually handled
by a unit or an entity that is in an entirely separate agency. In fact, in some cases
it might be handled by individuals who work at the local level and they don’t
even work for the state, whereas in the institution or in the facility they may
actually work for the state. So, in some instances we’re talking not merely about
a different unit within an agency, but we’re talking about an entirely different
agency. Depending on whether or not we’re talking about the same agency or a
different agency, one level of government or different level of government,
whether or not community-based reentry service in the community is handled
and under the authority of the local courts (which it is in some jurisdictions), or
whether it not stays in the same agency, we’re really going to need to think very
differently on how we organize the team. The division of labor may require
taking into account the very different organizational structures that we face. It’s
not going to look the same everywhere. Some people, I think, falsely assume that
just because the community-based post-release supervision piece is in the same
agency as the facility piece that that would naturally mean that things will be
connected and things would be consistent. The truth is that in many instances,
that’s not the case at all. You will be hard-pressed to understand that they
actually are in the same umbrella agency because they don’t really communicate
very well; they have a very different view about what the priorities are and what
they ought to be doing. They may not even know very much about what’s
happened, either in the stage prior to release or if they’re in the facility they may
know very little to nothing about what’s going to happen back out in the
community.
Depending upon all of those factors, it seems to me that we need to think about
how we can create these teams. Really, the team needs to be comprised of the
staff that are going to be key players, both during the period of out-of-home
placement or in correctional facilities, as well as the staff who are involved back
out in the community. I have to add to that in a number of instances we’re also
talking about outside service providers. They need to be a part of the team. We’re
talking about non-profit organizations; we’re talking about the faith-based
community; we’re potentially talking about mentors, family members. We really
need to be thinking about how we’re going to incorporate all of these different
players from the very, very beginning. The sooner that we get all of the different
stakeholders and team members involved and understanding what’s going on, all
along the way, I think the better off we’re going to be in terms of trying to
establish as much continuity and consistency as is going to be required.
Continuity and consistency is really the key thing for a lot of these young people.
They haven’t had it before they’ve gotten into the system and sometimes they
get very little of it when they’re involved in the system. It’s up to us to take the
different structures and the different bureaucratic arrangements that we find in
different jurisdictions and figure out how we can build in continuity and
consistency and reinforcement. I think that’s going to really be the key
ingredients to being successful in doing reentry.
TeNeane
08:29 Well that transitions really well into the next question because we’re talking about
consistency and continuity and a team approach to helping these young people
reenter the communities. That’s important, because I understand there are
obstacles that they must face. Can you talk a little bit about those obstacles?
David
08:47 I can, sure. There’s really a large number of potential obstacles. I like to think
about, for every obstacle, what the solution is, because it’s sort of easier to go
through the litany of obstacles and not give adequate attention to what the
solutions are. If I can, let me just address a couple of them and we’ll talk about
them from both an obstacle and a solution point of view.
TeNeane
09:07 Certainly
David
09:08 One of the things that happens a lot is that there are lots of myths and
misconceptions, particularly for young people who are coming back to the
community, not just from an alternative residential placement but from a
correctional facility, perhaps a very high-security correctional facility for
juveniles. There’s oftentimes a view that every young person coming out of those
facilities is equally at high-risk for reoffending and therefore we really need to be
focusing on them as if they were a very high-level threat to public safety. The
truth is that is not at all the case. There are a whole variety of reasons why young
people end up being placed into correctional facilities. Risk to public safety is one
factor, but it is certainly not the only factor. What that means is that we are
putting into correctional facilities young people who may be at high-need but are
a relatively low risk to public safety. The obstacle that I would like to point out
that’s inherent in this is the view that, the mindset that, these young people
coming out of correctional facilities are a danger to public safety and therefore
require a very high-level of supervision and surveillance and monitoring. That’s
really not the case. If a really good assessment is done, we are in a better position
to determine who, in fact, is more of a risk to public safety and who is less of a
risk. What we want to do is to take the “higher-risk to public safety” young
people who are going to be coming back into the community and thinking about
both the level of supervision and also the types of support that they’re going to
need so that we can keep the level of risk to an absolute minimum that would be
possible. For the young people who come out who are relatively low-risk to
public safety, we need to be very, very careful. If we approach them in the wrong
way, we’re going to face, in a sense, the self-fulfilling prophecy; we’re going to
make them high-risk. But, in fact, they are not high-risk to public safety. We can
treat them in ways that we may, in fact, turn them into that. For example, we
take a low-risk to reoffending young person and we have very, very high levels
of monitoring and surveillance; we’re watching them very closely. What we’re
going to detect, inevitably, would be non-compliance and infractions because
we’re also imposing on them conditions that really are not in sync with the level
of risk that they pose. They’re going to, probably, because they’re typical
adolescents, they’re going to be rather non-compliant. The non-compliance is not
an indication that they pose a threat to public safety, and if we act like it is, we’re
going to end up reacting in a way that is really way, way out of sync with the
threat to public safety and we’re going to be probably making them worse.
Another reason why that happens is because some of these young people,
essentially, are rebelling and reacting negatively to a level of structure that they
don’t need. We’re, in a sense, inviting them to act out and encouraging them to
act out when, in fact, if we had a lower level of supervision and more reasonable
sets of conditions, there is every reason to believe based on the research and the
evidence that they would not have as many problems. This one area about
identifying and then intervening in a way that is in sync with the level of risk of
reoffending is very, very important. Now, the young people who are coming out
of secure correctional facilities who are relatively low-risk to public safety but
have high-level needs, we need to, I think, be mindful of what those needs are
and we need to intervene and address those needs accordingly. That doesn’t
mean that we need to have high levels of monitoring and supervision—that
we’ve got to have high levels of control. For reasons I already explained, it
actually could be very counter-productive.
In terms of another obstacle that I would think it important to mention, it would
be meaningful engagement, both of families as well as employment opportunities
in the community, and education. Those three big areas, it seems to me, we often
really pay either inadequate attention to, or, for reasons that get very
complicated, we’re not able to intervene in a way that’s going to ultimately
produce the best circumstances for these young people. It seems to me that,
therefore, we need to start working with families, we need to be focusing on
educational issues, and we need to be thinking about what possibilities there’s
going to be for employment, particularly for mid- and older-aged adolescents, at
the very, very beginning. I don’t think any of these things can wait until shortly
before release. In many instances it’s really not taken very seriously, if we’re
lucky, until shortly before release and, in a number of instances, it’s really not
taken very seriously until these young people go back out into the community
and that’s really too late. Particularly for a “high-risk for reoffending” young
person, it seems to me, having them being placed on the waiting list for either a
job or for going back into school or holding out on dealing with the family until
very late in the process is a prescription for not accomplishing very much. The
issue oftentimes is the team as I was indicating earlier. We may have specialists
and we may have people who focus on these particular areas but they may not
get involved early enough to really be able to intervene in the most productive
and beneficial ways. I would be arguing that we really need to get family
engagement. We need to be thinking about what the educational options are
going to be in the community. We need to be thinking about where there’s going
to be employment, what that might be in terms of opportunities, very, very early
on. Now, in some places, what we hear is that, “Well, it could change. We’re
really not sure when it’s going to happen. We’re not really sure where they’re
going to go back to,” and that becomes an excuse for doing nothing. It seems to
me that that makes no sense whatsoever. Even if it’s only going to be sort of a
preliminary idea about what’s going to be happening at release, which might be 6
months, 9 months, 12 months, 18 months from now, we need to be thinking
about that as we go along. That has to be the driving force on the way we
intervene. Ultimately, these kids making it is going to be how they ultimately fare
when they’re back in the community, not in the correctional facility, not in the
out-of-home placement.
The final point I would make, which I think is related here, with regards to
obstacles, is the whole matter of inadequate preparation for return to the
community. What we see in a lot of out-of-home placements are some very good
work that gets done, but the truth is it’s really not preparing them for what
they’re going to face when they go back into those communities. While it may
make sense for having them be manageable and be compliant when they’re in the
out-of-home placement, it really is not taking into account what they’re likely to
face when they go back into the community. Let’s face it: a lot of these young
people are going back to communities that are not going to be a whole lot
different than when they left. In fact, in some places what you hear is, “Well,
what do you expect when there’s failure? They’re going back to the same
problems that were there from before and that nothing has changed.” It seems to
me we need to be very, very careful about that mindset because what we’re really
communicating to them, I think, perhaps inadvertently but nonetheless
powerfully, is that the chances that they’re going to be able to make it because
they’re going back to a place where there’s going to be challenges, is very, very
low. I don’t think we need to be communicating that to these young people.
What we want to be focusing on is their resiliency, their strengths, their being in a
position to transcend what are going to be tough situations out in the community.
It’s not as if we’re all of a sudden be able to change those circumstances. What
we can do, however, is work with them so that they’re in a better position to be
able to deal with the negative influences that were there before, that are going to
be there when they go back, and in some instances they may be worse than when
they left. In other instances, they may be less able to deal with them because
they’ve been away from it for a long time. That’s not doing them any good and
that’s not doing public safety any good. We really need to be thinking about
what are we going to do for them that’s going to prepare them to deal with the
temptation and the challenges back out in the community. We need to deal with
them on what it takes to create a new potential peer group, if in fact they were
involved with a very negative peer group before. If they had real serious family
problems before, those family problems may still be in place when they get there.
We need to think about how we could have them in a better position to be able to
deal with those family problems. In other instances, the families are actually very
powerful supports for these young people but there’s a view, in some cases, that
the problem is with the families and there’s not much you can do with it, and
therefore nobody bothers to intervene. That would be another set of obstacles
that, it seems to me, if we’re realistic about what these obstacles are and we
focus on what the solutions are to dealing with these obstacles, we’re going to be
in a much better position to ultimately have an impact, both on the kids who are
coming back to the community who are a high-risk for reoffending and also those
who are low-risk for reoffending that we want to make sure we do not,
inadvertently, turn into a high-risk for reoffending young person.
Beat Exit
Voiceover:
18:47 The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS
Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving
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developing partnerships and solving problems.
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